Hard Drive Space Question

[hunginator]

Hello,

I ordered 512GB of storage with my new MBP (M1 Chip) but based on disk utility, it is showing 494.38GB. That's a difference of ~18GB's!

Is this normal? Also, maybe I'm going crazy but I'm quite sure that when I first setup my laptop, it was showing 500GB and now it has suddenly "dropped" to 494.38GB??? I've attached a screenshot below.

Thanks!

 

[Apple_Robert]

512GB does not mean 512GB is available. There is nothing wrong with your drive space wise. 494GB looks correct.

 

[Quackers]

My 256GB drive shows only 245GB available too.

 

[Jack Neill]

I feel like this is a M1 thing. My M1 Air is the same 494GB. My i5 2020 Air reports 500GB, both are on 11.4. Using diskutil list reports different container sizes as well. Ive been wondering this myself for awhile.

 

[Cookie18]

That's correct and seems low if anything. I remember the days when you'd get a 512GB HDD or SSD but actually only get about 480GB actually available.

 

[Jack Neill]

My curiosity on this is more about the technical aspect for why the M1 is different than the Intel's. It seems like there is an extra recovery container on the M1 that my i5 doesn't have. I don't really care about the 6GB of space.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Why does my hard drive report less capacity than indicated on the drive's label? | Seagate US

www.seagate.com

Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

If you've ever purchased a computer with a hard disk capacity of 500 GB and opened Windows Explorer only to find that its capacity looked more like 440 GB, you may be wondering where all those gigabytes went.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[Jack Neill]

Why does my hard drive report less capacity than indicated on the drive's label? | Seagate US

www.seagate.com

Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

If you've ever purchased a computer with a hard disk capacity of 500 GB and opened Windows Explorer only to find that its capacity looked more like 440 GB, you may be wondering where all those gigabytes went.

www.howtogeek.com

I don’t think that’s really relevant here. If anything this is.

How storage capacity is measured on Apple devices - Apple Support

The storage capacity stated on your device's packaging or specifications might differ from the capacity reported by its operating system or apps.

support.apple.com

 

[Significant1]

Hello,

I ordered 512GB of storage with my new MBP (M1 Chip) but based on disk utility, it is showing 494.38GB. That's a difference of ~18GB's!

Is this normal? Also, maybe I'm going crazy but I'm quite sure that when I first setup my laptop, it was showing 500GB and now it has suddenly "dropped" to 494.38GB??? I've attached a screenshot below.

Thanks!

View attachment 1702820

First of all you should press cmd+2 in disk utility to see "all" in the sidebar. I write "all", because the GUI is still hiding stuff like the recovery partition. To really see all, go to terminal and write "diskutil list".

 

[MacCheetah3]

I don’t think that’s really relevant here. If anything this is.

How storage capacity is measured on Apple devices - Apple Support

The storage capacity stated on your device's packaging or specifications might differ from the capacity reported by its operating system or apps.

support.apple.com

First of all you should press cmd+2 in disk utility to see "all" in the sidebar. I write "all", because the GUI is still hiding stuff like the recovery partition. To really see all, go to terminal and write "diskutil list".

My bad… I overlooked that the OP didn’t select the drive.

@Jack Neill I was not aware Apple had an article explaining the decimal vs. binary factor.